Music and social change have long gone hand in hand and now Australians can be rewarded with concert tickets for having a heart and taking action.
Global Citizen Tickets, which already prompts between 3000 and 10,000 actions in America weekly, is now in Australia.
The aim is to encourage people to take action on issues like the 57 million children, mostly girls, not in primary school who should be and 1.2 billion people living in extreme poverty.
After registering online, simple actions like signing a petition, sharing a video on social media or checking in somewhere on Facebook earn participants points.
Donating time, money or organising an event are also worth points that can be exchanged to enter draws for free concert tickets.
International acts like Bruce Springsteen and Nine Inch Nails are among those on board, and local artists involved include Tame Impala, Josh Pyke and Missy Higgins.
Australian Hugh Evans founded the organisation behind the initiative, the Global Poverty Project.
He co-produced Melbourne's Make Poverty History concert in 2006 featuring Bono and Pearl Jam and is now based in New York.
Evans says Global Citizen Tickets began with an idea from Pearl Jam manager, Kelly Curtis.
Curtis told Evans that every manager or agent could always organise two tickets to a show.
"He said what would happen if we could take this simple concept to scale," Evans says.
"How could two tickets actually change the world?"
Music has long played a significant role in social change like the anti-apartheid movement and advancing women's rights.
"The movement to end extreme poverty is no different," Evans says.
"Music is an amazing galvaniser of social movements and I think that's just awesome.
"The more I have worked with the music industry over the years, the more I have seen how music unites us all."
Evans has been living in New York for almost four years.
He credits fellow Australians Hugh Jackman and his wife Deborra-Lee Furness with helping get the Global Poverty Project off the ground.
Jackman hosted a dinner at his New York home with the a group of influential figures like Donna Karan and Calvin Klein and asked Evans to talk to them about eradicating extreme poverty.
Furness later hosted the Global Poverty Project's first major event at the Museum of Modern Art.
"To be honest if it wasn't for those two I can't see how we would've gotten started," he says.
* Global Citizen Tickets registration: www.globalcitizen.org
ARTISTS INVOLVED IN GLOBAL CITIZEN TICKETS INCLUDE:
- Bruce Springsteen
- Nine Inch Nails
- Birds of Tokyo
- Cold Chisel
- Gotye
- John Butler Trio
- Josh Pyke
- Missy Higgins
- Tame Impala
- The Jezabels
- The Living End
- The Temper Trap
- Vance Joy
